Snow
by Dawn Everdeen
Summary: It's the first snowfall in the concentration camp and Giosué is so excited he can't sleep, so it's time for Guido to tell him something that happened after a particularly snowy winter in Arezzo.


Guido felt someone poking his cheek softly. It was a child's finger. The toddler who was poking him couldn't be any older than three or four years old, and there was only one boy of this age in their barrack, or at least that's what everyone thought.

"Papa, papa!" the boy whispered.

Guido yawned silently, not wanting to wake up his barrack mates. He scratched his scabby hair sleepingly, and opened his eyes to find his little son Giosué smiling cheerily at him.

"What's the matter, Giosué?" Guido asked in a whisper. It was dark outside, so it couldn't have been any later than midnight. He wondered why was his son still wide awake, knowing he was such a sleepyhead. The little three-year-old poked his cheek for a little more, and then grinned.

"It's snowing outside, papa!" the little boy cheered.

Guido felt exhausted after the day's work in the foundry, but he didn't want to disappoint his little son. Guido would never do that, he was too caring of his offspring to ever think of disappointing Giosué. He took a moment to show his little boy his greatest smile, and pretend to be wide awake. He then opened his eyes wide open and grinned at Giosué.

"Oh my, that's wonderful news!" he exclaimed. "That means winter is finally here. And do you know what does it mean, Giosué?" the little boy shook his head enthusiastically, hoping to hear a brand new story from his father's imagination. Guido smiled and started creating a whole new story for his son's pleasure. "Winter is here!"

"But winter is not a nice season," Giosué argued. "It's cold outside and I can't wear my shorts."

"Don't be silly, winter is absolutely great!" Guido exclaimed. "You know, back where I was born, we used to have tons of snow every winter."

Giosué's mouth hung wide open.

"Snow?" he asked. "You got to play with snow every winter? That's not fair! It never snows at home. I want to have snow."

"Sure it does snow, every now and then!" Guido told his son. Then, he winked an eye at him in a sign of confidence. "You know what? I heard a story one day. It was very, very long ago, before I arrived to Arezzo. I think your mother told me about it, just to try and scare me off when we first met. Anyway, it is said that the last time it snowed in Arezzo was a long, long time ago, when you little misfit were not around yet. It was shocking for the city's inhabitants, you see - unfortunately, they were not used to snow."

The thing is, with the snow arrived a man whose intention was to name the city of Arezzo as Addis Abeba. _Addis Abeba_! Well, that man was not the kind of gentleman you can joke about - he was a prince, you see. He arrived to a great, enormous farm full with poultry and cows, and met a little girl named Eleonora, who was the first inhabitant of Arezzo to know of his royal condition. The prince told Eleonora about how he would bring rhinoceros and ostriches to the city and change them for the old and boring farm animals, which pleased the girl to excess. Then, when the prince was about to bid goodbye to young Eleonora, he heard some loud stepping in the barn, and walked over to see what had happened. From the barn fell a young, beautiful woman whom the prince thought of as a princess. The princess had been badly injured by a wasp sting, and the prince was luckily able to save her life by spitting the venom out of her knee.

"Did she survive?" Giosué asked worryingly, because he was that kind of boy who didn't like sad endings.

"Of course she did," Guido laughed, smiling at the memory of something that had happened just a few years ago. "The prince saved her from the most certain death. Soon enough, our prince met his princess in the strangest places you could imagine – in the town square, in the school...everywhere the prince went he seemed to jump into the beautiful princess he was growing so fond of! One day, they went to the opera – you know, fat ladies and bearded men screaming to the top of their lungs – and there he met a fat old man who wanted to marry the princess – and he wasn't even part of the city's royalty! So, in order to stop this insanity, the prince took his beautiful princess away with his car, and they drove until the car broke down. They spent a beautiful night together, with rain pouring over the city and praying the Lord to get them the weirdest things – a key, a hat..."

"How did the Lord send them a key and a hat?" Giosué demanded, his mouth agape with fascination.

"Well, you know, he's the Lord," Guido scoffed, trying to seem perfectly fine with it. "He can do anything." Giosué nodded, so his father continued with the story. "Anyway, let's go on with our story. One day, when the prince was serving – I mean, _attending_ to an engagement party, and he was shocked to see it was the fat, non-royal man, who was going to get engaged to the princess!"

"But that can't be!" Giosué protested. "The prince has to marry the princess, not the fat, non-royal man!"

"That's what everyone believes, Giosué," Guido answered, clicking his tongue. "But of course, the prince had thought it all very well. So instead of letting the princess follow the fat, non-royal man to a life of unhappiness and unroyality, he broke into the party riding his beautiful green Jew horse and took the princess with him away from the fat, non-royal man's hands, and they both lived happily ever after and had a little prince of their own."

Giosué looked at his father for a few seconds, willing to hear more from him. But after that, the boy snuggled close to his father and yawned.

"I liked the story, papa," he whispered. He looked at the window and saw that, to his disappointment, snow wasn't falling any more, and the little amount of it in the ground wasn't curdling, so he wouldn't be able to play with the snow like he had always dreamt of. "But the snow is gone."

"Liked? You must have loved it, my little boy," his father corrected him. "And don't worry about the snow. When we get our tank, I will take you to the most beautiful place in the world. It's called the Mont Blanc, and it is always full with snow. There are even snow monsters and princesses of the ice here and there! I'm sure uncle Eliseo would love to take us there. He came with me and my dad when I was a little kid like you."

The boy grinned at him one last time before falling asleep. "I would love that, papa. But now we have to get some sleep, because we don't want the really bad people who yell to take points off us. Because if they do we will have to stay longer."

Guido watched how Giosué's eyes slowly fell closed, and caressed the boy's hair slowly until he heard he was breathing regularly, fast asleep. Guido kissed his son's head and closed his eyes.

"Good night, my little prince. We will have our tank soon."

Those were not good times for dreamers, but Guido still fought – in his own way, but still fought anyway – for their survival. He dozed off to sleep, dreaming about his _principessa_ and her beautiful pink dress, back to that afternoon in the opera and those happy days in the city not so long ago.

What Giosué didn't know was that the previous days before Guido's arrival to Arezzo, snow had fallen over the city for the first time in twenty years.

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**So that was it! I know, not very long, but I enjoyed writing it! So please R&R!**

**Dawn xx**


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